Often in a deployment of a wireless local area network (WLAN) environment, the coverage of access point (AP) cells, from which client devices obtain service in the WLAN, overlap each other to achieve a maximum RF coverage area to reduce “holes” or non-service spots. However, this approach creates a severe problem referred to as “micro-roaming” or “ping pong” effect in overlapping cells. The micro-roaming or ping-pong effect is a phenomenon wherein a wireless client, such as a phone, laptop, or handheld computing device, inside an overlapping coverage area, is rapidly roaming among APs within the cell. When a client enters a micro-roaming state, often it cannot settle itself on a particular AP. This causes data frames to be dropped frequently, creates noticeable voice gaps or call drops for client telephones, and creates an excessive load burden among the APs as well as the backbone network infrastructure that handles the roaming events.
A prior approach to solving the problem of micro-roaming is to reduce each AP's transmit power, and possibly the client transmit power as well, in an effort to reduce the overlapping area within the cells. However, this approach is ineffective as it reduces the overall RF coverage area, and creates non-service spots that are too large to be acceptable.